Primary education in Sri Lanka facing crisis

COLOMBO: The results, announced last month, were a shocking drop from the 60-70 per cent average pass rate recorded every year in this country which boasts South Asia’s best human development indices including a 92 per cent literacy rate.

For those who thought the results were an aberration, there was further bad news. All the students from the nine schools of Colombo, the capital city where the best education facilities are available, who sat for the university entrance exam – the GCE Advanced Level –had failed in all the subjects.

Among those who expressed shock at the results was President Mahinda Rajapakse who has asked for an urgent report on the crisis from education minister Susil Premajayantha. The matter was also taken up in the cabinet.

But there are many in the country who saw it coming and have been talking of steadily declining standards in education for some years now. “We boast of high literacy rates but our higher education is the most backward in South Asia,'” says Kabir Hashim, former education minister and opposition parliamentarian.

Hashim believes that politicisation and inability to sustain national policies in education has led to the rot. “Earlier it was rural schools that suffered from lack of facilities and good teachers. Now even the schools in Colombo are suffering due to lack of proper systems, politicisation and lack of motivation on the part of teachers.”

Nimal Sanderatne, one of the country’s most eminent economists, says the poor GCE results can be attributed to a policy that passes students up the grades indiscriminately. “Nowadays students from grade one onwards are automatically promoted without proper assessment. This is unlike our days when if you are not up to standard, you don’t get promoted to the next grade.”

But the worst criticism was reserved for school teachers who devote their time and energy to parallel tuition centres where they often teach the more serious students, neglecting regular classes for extra pay. According to some reports, owners of private tutorials are among the richest people in Sri Lanka.

The monthly wage of a graduate government teacher varies from $108-$135. “'These wages are a pittance compared to what is paid in the corporate sector where an unqualified clerk or junior secretary starts with this kind of salary, whereas we spend more than 10 years to reach this stage after graduation,” a mathematics teacher at a Colombo school said, asking not to be named.

This teacher said he makes up to $10 an hour giving private tuitions. “What I get a month from my government job can be earned in three or four days of tuition,” he said, adding that the only way the government can reverse this trend is to bring salaries of government teachers on par with private-sector wages.

Calls are now being heard to partly privatise the education, which in Sri Lanka has traditionally been free and a monopoly of the government. Spending on education by the government last year totalled $700 million, lower than defence which cost over $880 million. The education budget accounted for less than three percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

Sanderatne said this sorry trend in education is bound to have a negative impact on society. “Those who went to school and failed would still want jobs with some dignity and standing – even though they don’t have qualifications or skills. They don’t want farm or plantation jobs though there are plenty available,” he said. One solution, he said, would be to invest more in vocational training such as driving and carpentry which can lead to better situations than jobs on farms and plantations.

Sri Lanka’s tea and rubber plantations, once the backbone of the export economy, are struggling to cope with labour shortages. Most workers on estates are sending their children to school in the hope that they would eventually land white-collar jobs.

Sanderatne, who teaches agriculture economics at the University of Peradeniya in the central hill town of Kandy, says the poor quality of students churned out by the schools is already affecting the local state universities and the needs of the market place.

The unemployment rate in Sri Lanka is high not because there are no jobs but simply because the graduates are unemployable. According to Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) of Sri Lanka President Nawaz Rajabdeen, thousands of vacancies in the private sector advertised in the local media remain unfilled as the applicants lack competence and skills.

Parliamentarian Hashim says there are plenty of jobs in agriculture farms and tea and rubber plantations, but graduates are looking for white-collar jobs and do not even consider jobs in these sectors, even if the wages are good.—Dawn/The IPS News Service